The local 'Cherry Plum' tree came into flower last week which is about on time and always destroyed by rain every year. It is the first time I have seen Blackthorn come into flower before it in the 35 years I have lived here. Hazel and Alder all dying off now. Snowdrops will be gone next week. Crocus in full flower and the Crab Apple flowering which I think is about a month early. We did have 16c here today and it only rained for a couple of hours compared to all day like we have had for the last 4 months. I am 58 and I have never seen the land so soaked. Farms I have shot and fished at for decades are unrecognisable. Land washed out and gully's cut through fields by flood water. Fields not sown which should have been at the latest in October. 100's of acres of yellow fields. One farm has a 1000 acre of OSR which has just rotted in the ground and will be ploughed in if they can ever get the tractors on the fields which I can't even walk on at the moment. My dog keeps finding dead birds in the hedgerow which look like they have died of hypothermia being soaking wet for weeks on end. If we ever needed a warm dry spring this is the year.
Lots of white flowers from prunus (cherry plum) type trees in the hedgerows. Hazel is still around. There is some gorse flowering here and there too.
Although it will be a little colder in a few days' time, it does feel like Spring is arriving.
